When Life Gives You Lemons: Learning to Laugh Amidst Depression

Just a simple reminder to find humor when life gives you lemons.

Photo: Pexels.com

I’m coming up on the one year anniversary of an important day. A special day that changed two lives forever. While my marriage falls around this time too, I’m talking about another event that could have bigger implications – well beyond matrimonial bliss.

I’m talking about the day I clocked a pastor with my golf club.

It’s blasphemous to hit any man of God, let alone the pastor who presided over your wedding, with an over-sized driver. And we haven’t even discussed where I hit him yet. So how could something like this happen?

Let’s rewind shall we? First tee, dogleg left. The pastor throttled his opening drive and stepped behind me. “Must be nice to have God as your caddy,” I quipped, taking a couple loose practice swings. The first one went as planned, but on the second attempt, my club connected with an intruder entering my personal airspace.

Ungodly screams were followed by a thud. I broke the cardinal rule of every golf coach and looked up to see my pastor rolling around on the grass. “Holy S**t!,” I blurted, dropping the weapon. The pastor stepped in front of my swing to pick up a wooden tee worth almost a nickel. The meeting of titanium and flesh could not have been worse. My club didn’t whack him in the stomach. It didn’t whack him in the buttock.

Nope, I just whacked this saintly soul, right under his fig leaf!

The Golf Starter prayed as the Beer Cart girl peeled off looking for Holy Water and Dr. Phil. Most people would’ve been too shaken up to continue. Not me. I hit that first tee shot as if my soul never heard of the term: Eternal Damnation. The pastor was OK…after a few days and he forgave me…after a few weeks.

So what does this story have to do with depression? Nothing. But it is a simple reminder, to laugh at life… and sometimes that can mean everything.

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